Thursday

Jun 21, 2018 at 3:39 PMJun 21, 2018 at 3:52 PM

BOSTON — State regulators voted unanimously Thursday to grant the state's first recreational marijuana business license to a marijuana grower in Milford.

The license approved by the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) on Thursday will allow Sira Naturals to grow between 10,001 and 20,000 square feet of marijuana at their indoor facility at 13 Commercial Way in Milford.

Sira Naturals already grows marijuana for medical patients at its Milford cultivation facility and operates medical dispensaries in Cambridge, Somerville and Needham. The company grows more than 60 strains of marijuana and turns it into cookies, caramels and other edibles.

The CCC has had the authority to issue business licenses to marijuana companies since June 1 and expects that retail sales will begin on or around July 1, even though the regulators have not yet licensed any retail shops.

CCC Chairman Steven Hoffman said Thursday that the CCC expects to consider license applications at its meetings for the foreseeable future.

"It's the beginning, not the end," he said. "This is the first license we're taking up for deliberation, but we expect as we go forward over the next few weeks and months that every meeting will have a few additional ones ... this is going to become a regular process."

CCC Executive Director Shawn Collins said Sira Naturals plans to be fully operational within four months of being licensed, though he noted that the company is already growing marijuana for medical use and has the ability to transfer some of that product to the adult use market.

The provisional license is conditional upon a fingerprint-based check of state and federal criminal databases, payment of the $5,000 annual license fee, a certification that the company is in compliance with the Department of Public Health's regulations for medical marijuana, and other conditions.

Sira Naturals submitted its application to the CCC before any other companies, on April 18, and the CCC received word from Milford June 8 that the company is following all local zoning ordinances and town bylaws, Collins said.